Answer: Hewlett-Packard

In terms of business and startup lore, the founding of Hewlett-Packard is a bit of a legend. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard met at Stanford University and after they graduated, the two young electrical engineers started their company out of a one-car garage (while participating in a fellowship at Stanford). The creation of Hewlett-Packard and the tiny-but-iconic-garage are considered to be the birth (and birthplace) of Silicon Valley and the garage is now listed on multiple historic registries.

While that part of the story is well known, what many people don’t know is that the reason we know the company as Hewlett-Packard instead of Packard-Hewlett is a matter of probability. When the two young men were ironing out what to call their fledgling company, they opted to go about things as fairly as possible. The decision to name the company was made with the flip of a coin.